The European Union (EU) has decided to suspend negotiations for the revival of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
EU High Representative for Foreign Relations, Josep Borrell, made a statement on Twitter regarding the decision taken after the requests from Russia, and said, “The Vienna Negotiations have to be stopped due to external factors.”
The last round of negotiations, with the participation of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran, started towards the end of November last year for the revival of the agreement signed in 2015 to oversee Iran’s nuclear program. President Joe Biden’s administration was indirectly involved in the negotiations regarding the agreement, with which former US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US from in 2018.
Thanks to this agreement, Western countries controlled Iran’s nuclear program, which they claimed was trying to produce nuclear weapons, and Iran was protected from sanctions in return. However, since Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement and reinstating the sanctions, Iran has also accelerated its uranium development efforts by violating some articles of the agreement.
The negotiation process, which has been carried out recently, has come to a dead end due to new demands from Russia at the weekend. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made an unexpected statement and demanded that the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine be implemented in a way that would not affect Russia’s trade with Iran.
The countries involved in the negotiations clearly opposed this demand of Russia. Emphasizing that Russia’s request is not related to the Iran talks, American officials state that they will not accept such a request under any circumstances.
Iranian officials continue to deny that they are seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but there are concerns that halting negotiations on the deal will increase the risk of tension and war in the Middle East.
It seems likely that Western countries will impose new sanctions on Iran, as the agreement is out of date for the time being. According to experts, such a scenario could lead to a further rise in oil prices, which rose rapidly due to the Ukraine crisis.
Russia: “The outcome of the agreement does not depend only on Russia”
Western officials point out that they have been in common with Moscow on nuclear disarmament until now, but the unexpected ‘conditional demand’ has dragged the talks to a dead end.
Russian officials, on the other hand, object to the statements that the negotiations were delayed due to Russia’s demand.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s representative who is conducting the negotiations, told reporters after the talks, “The outcome of the agreement does not depend only on Russia. “There are parties that need time and have other concerns, and these concerns are also being discussed,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Said Katipzade also commented that the suspension of the talks could create time for other issues to be resolved. Katipzade also argued that, contrary to what Western officials refer to, “external factors” should not influence the final decision on the deal.
Chinese negotiator Wang Qun also said that the negotiations cannot continue under the “political vacuum” and that the demands of all parties should be evaluated.
The fact that Russia stipulated that the sanctions imposed in relation to the Ukraine crisis would not affect bilateral trade relations with Iran initially provoked the reaction of the Iranian authorities.
However, the statements of many Iranian officials, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, showed that Iran’s stance had changed.
Before Russia’s request, European leaders announced that they were about to reach a common decision in the negotiations and that the result was now left to the resolution of some conflicts between Iran and the USA.